An
unintended but highly pro vocative irony occurred this weekend
at the Spectrum 8 Theatres. There I was, awaiting the afternoon
showing of Frozen River, when the trailer for Diane
English’s remake of The Women came across the screen.
Meg Ryan, Eva Mendez, Annette Bening, Debra Messing, and Jada
Pinkett Smith gossiped, flounced and reacted with and to one
another in a stylish assortment of designer togs and digs
(all the while making me wonder if Clare Boothe Luce is reeling
in her grave). Clearly, this is going to be a big-budget girlfriend
type of film, sort of like Sex and the City with more
wedding rings and multiculturalism. Soon after, Frozen
River spread its glacial Plattsburgh-in-January setting
before us, and we were submerged in a world of bracing winds,
limited opportunities and no plastic surgery. Near a rundown
trailer home and an even dingier toy carousel, Ray (Melissa
Leo) sits in the front seat of her car, a fuzzy bathrobe clutched
in one hand while the other holds the stub of a cigarette
to the grim line of her mouth. A shiny new mobile home is
en route to be delivered to her, only her gambling-addict
husband has flown the coop with the money that was to have
paid for their piece of the American dream.

Writer-director Courtney Hunt does a stunning job of evoking
the world of characters for whom the prospect of upward mobility
means getting a full-time gig at Yankee Dollar, and for whom
making it till payday means living on Tang and popcorn; and
her cast is stellar at making us feel that kind of unsettled
desperation. While Ray tries to negotiate with the delivery
people, her teenage son J.T. (Charlie McDermott) looks on
with a growing realization of his family’s place in the scheme
of things; while 5-year-old Ricky (James Reilly) desperately
clutches the little suitcase he has joyfully packed in anticipation
of the big move. Clearly, without Ray’s husband returning
with the cash—a highly dubious possibility—her family is screwed,
but she heads out in quixotic hopes of finding something,
anything, to grab on to or work with. At this point, she meets
Lila (Misty Upshaw), a surly Mohawk woman ostracized from
her people and hateful of authority. Through mutual need,
the two women take on a job smuggling illegal immigrants out
of Canada, through the reservation and into the United States
proper. It’s highly dangerous, involving crossing (what else?)
a frozen river and engendering possible prison time, but it’s
also extremely lucrative. With just a few runs, Ray realizes
the potential to pay for that mobile home, while Lila harbors
hopes of regaining custody of her baby—or at least contributing
to his future.

The runs that Ray and Lila make increase in the potential
for disaster; indeed, there were times when I thought of fleeing
the theatre, momentarily unwilling to come face to face with
decisions and events that could only meet with very terrible
consequences. This is the stuff that keeps people up in the
emotional cold of 3 AM, counting remaining mortgage payments
or configuring ways to make a dollar stretch 17 ways and praying,
always praying, for some kind of deliverance. Ray and Lila
can barely stand each other, but as Frozen River plays
out, they realize they are quite similar, two women with less
than zero economic prospects for improvement. That said, Hunt
does not attempt to romanticize the women’s criminal activity.
These are not Bonnies in search of Clydes, or even Thelma
and Louise—but nor are they even on the same planet as the
women in the new The Women. Ray and Lila, with their
bleak prospects, are not much different from their human cargo,
many of whom will become little more than indentured slaves.
What Hunt is most interested in, rather than melodrama or
political dogma, is the possibility that her audience might
actually look at, not through, her characters.

Thai
Stuck

Bangkok
Dangerous

Directed
by Oxide and Danny Pang

With
The Messengers last year, Oxide and Danny Pang (The
Eye) maintained their reputation for stylishly creepy
suspense. Though the story dissolved into cliché, familiarity
didn’t quite dispel the shivers created by the Pang’s spooky
imagery. Bangkok Dangerous, however, the brothers’
Americanized remake of Oxide’s Chinese-language blockbuster,
shows that the Pangs’ have probably run out of pictorial steam.
A shopworn story of a hitman who develops a conscience, Bangkok
Dangerous is most notable for its inexplicably choppy
action and Nicolas Cage’s matted black wig (which does not
make him look the least bit Asian).

Joe (Cage) is a robotic hitman trying to get out of the racket
with one last job. His anonymous, loner existence is constricted
by four rules; one of them is that his helpers must be disposable.
Joe’s voiceover narration explains his ruthless modus operandi
during the terse opening sequence. He executes a prisoner
by long-range sniper fire, brazenly takes out another victim
by motorcycle, and kills his trusting foreign contact. He
then relocates to Thailand for a final contract that will
set up his escape from his crimelord employer. Bangkok, he
explains, is corrupt, dangerous, and dense, and thus the ideal
locale for him to disappear without a trace.

In the roiling streets of the city, he selects a helper, a
petty hustler who calls himself Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) and
falls for an innocent pharmacist, Fon (Charlie Yeung), who
is deaf and dumb (in the livelier original, it’s the hitman
who is a deaf-mute). Kong thinks that Joe is a vigilante because
he seemingly kills only bad men. Actually, he kills whomever
he’s paid to, but Joe is moved by Kong’s admiration. His nonverbal
dates with Fon are even more tedious than his double-crossed
contractual hits for the bland crimelord, but having a social
life causes Joe to lose his edge, and needless to say, losing
his edge makes him a liability to the criminals he takes orders
from.

Cage’s snarky cynicism is familiar but effective—it’s the
familiar and sloppy choreography that makes the movie’s second
half a total bore. As if realizing they have nothing new to
add to the genre, the Pangs vary film stocks, shutter speeds,
and color saturation to make the gunplay more interesting,
but what they really need to change is their script selection.